Healing Grief Through Creative Expression with Grief Coach and Filmmaker Rachel Fowler

Can grief be a catalyst for creativity? Join me as I uncover the transformative power of loss with Rachel Fowler, a storyteller and grief coach who has turned her personal tragedies into a source of inspiration and healing. Rachel shares her deeply moving journey, from relocating to London to coping with the devastating loss of her nephew, and how these experiences have influenced her work, including her poignant short film "Stillness." Through this heartfelt conversation, we explore how Rachel helps others process grief through creative expression, offering invaluable insights for those seeking solace and understanding.

Community support plays a pivotal role in processing grief, and this episode sheds light on unique ways to foster these connections.  We discuss the often-overlooked importance of reaching out to those in mourning months after a loss, and discuss the multifaceted nature of grief within families, especially when children are involved. Through personal anecdotes, we illustrate how opening up about grief can be mutually healing and how small gestures can make a significant difference.

This episode also touches on major life changes like moving, divorce, and job loss, stressing the importance of purpose and relationships in finding happiness amidst grief. Join us for a touching episode that offers both practical advice and emotional support for anyone navigating the complexities of loss.

Rachel is a film director, actor, mother, and  grief coach.  A personal loss inspired her to write a short film called 'Stillness' and is currently working on another film called 'Somewhere Very Near' - both of which focus on grief.  You can connect with Rachel Fowler Grief Coach.

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Chapters

• 0:03 Exploring Grief and Healing Through Creativity
• 14:14 Community Support in Grief Processing
• 24:14 Beyond Words
• 36:03 Connections Through Grief and Spirituality
• 45:37 Journey Through Loss and Healing

Transcript

Rose: 0:03

Welcome to Chat Off The Mat, the podcast that explores the transformative journey of healing and self-discovery where energy, spirituality, mind and body intersect. Hi, I'm your host, Rose Wippage, and I invite you to join me and explore ways to invite more holistic practices into your life. I will feature experts and practitioners who provide insights, tips and practical advice. From Reiki to Qigong, chakra balancing to shamanism, this podcast will be your guide to understanding how these practices can lead to more harmony and greater energy. Whether you're seeking stress relief, emotional balance or a deeper connection to your authentic self, chat Off the Mat provide you with insights and inspiration. Let's start discovering the possibilities that lie within you.

Rose: 1:00

Today. On Chat Off the Mat, I welcome Rachel Fowler. Rachel is a storyteller, whether as an actor, director, writer or coach. She celebrates human stories and the power they have to heal, reveal hidden truths and to transform. She's passionate about making the world more grief, literate and more compassionate, both towards ourselves and each other. Welcome Rachel.

Rachel: 1:28

Thank you so much, thank you.

Rose: 1:30

So grateful that you're here. Yes, thank you for being here. I'd like to start out by asking you to tell our listeners a little bit about your background and also the path that led you to do what you're doing today and what it is that you do.

Rachel: 1:46

Amazing, amazing. It's interesting. I feel like I have been because I'm an artist, I'm a little bit of a jack of all trades. So I'm an actor, I'm a filmmaker, I'm a theater maker, I'm a filmmaker, I'm a theater maker and I moved to London nine years ago and sort of had to abandon a lot of that. We moved here for my husband's job and at 45, I had to reinvent myself, which was really challenging. A lot of endings, a lot of grief over those endings, a lot of grief over those endings. And about a year after we moved here, my nephew, who was 13 years old, died on my daughter's birthday and that sort of sent this huge ripple effect through my whole family, obviously through my life, and all of my creative work started being about grief.

Rachel: 2:45

Everything I was writing was about grief and I had started coaching, doing executive coaching, which I really loved, and COVID hit and I was like, wow, the world is grieving. You know, we were grieving the lack of normalcy. We were grieving, obviously, death because there was so much happening I mean so much and I was like, ah, here it is. This is what I'm being called to do is to use my own personal experience with grief to hold space for other people and to help people get more comfortable with holding space for each other, because I think that that's sort of what I mean by wanting to make the world a little bit more grief literate is getting people to set aside their own discomfort in service of someone else's suffering. So now I'm I'm predominantly a grief coach grief and loss coach and I also do films. I make films and they're all about grief and yeah, did.

Rose: 4:02

I answer your question.

Rachel: 4:03

I think I did.

Rose: 4:03

Yes, you, you did. Thank you so much for doing that. You answered all my questions, um, and I know that let's talk about your film, because I know you've put a lot of energy, time and um around making your films, so the a personal loss is what inspired you to write and produce and direct your film Stillness. Yeah, could you talk about that movie for us please?

Rachel: 4:28

Yeah, so the loss was actually the loss of my nephew and he died on my daughter's birthday, like I said. So I was trying to untangle that great joy, great sorrow, and I wrote a short story. So the story of Stillness is about a photographer who comes to a hospital to take remembrance portraits for a family that have just suffered a stillbirth, and I really wanted to capture the witnessing. And again, it's that holding space, holding space for other people who are in pain. So it's really the photographer's story, this woman who comes for her own reasons, her own personal experience with loss, to lend her time, her energy, her art, her witnessing to other people who are struggling and who are in pain and help them find a connection and some healing with it. So, yeah, that's stillness, did you?

Rose: 5:37

watch it. I did watch it. It was very powerful and I couldn't stop crying. And it's not like there were a lot, there was a lot of words. It was almost powerful through the lack of words, through the lack of dialogue and I know you've graciously offered to allow me to put the link in the show notes for people to watch. Very powerful. Anybody experiencing any type of loss can really benefit from watching it. And yeah, it was, it was, it was great, it was, it was wonderful and it's a short film. I know it's not 11 minutes long.

Rose: 6:16

Yes 11 powerful minutes. Yeah, so let's talk about the. Or you say so, you write and you say that you use creative space to help people heal. Can you talk about what that is? How do you work with people by using creativity to process their grief? Besides the movie, are there any?

Rachel: 6:33

other ways. We all have that capacity to imagine, which is where our creativity comes from, and I think that sometimes over time, because of the way that we're socialized, the way that we're educated, the jobs that we get, we sort of lose our way into it. So a lot of what I do is to try to guide back into that imaginative state, because I do believe that there's so much healing that can take place there. And when you're going through grief it's transformative, right. It changes you and changes who you are, and being able to imagine what you want your life to look like on the other side of grief, being able to imagine how you want to feel, imagine how you want to be living, can be really, really useful. So a lot of what working with me looks like is me sort of meeting you where you're at in terms of what interests you in your creativity. The go-to is writing, so there'll be journal prompts. I'll give something like that.

Rachel: 7:50

I had one client who she said that she couldn't write because it just it felt like overwhelming.

Rachel: 7:59

So for her, I asked her to write a haiku at the end of every day, to come up with, you know, a really synthesized and powerful, rich, 17 syllables to encapsulate what had happened to her that day, and she found that really really useful as a way of processing right, putting it to language and some concise language, processing right, putting it to language and some concise language. Another client was a painter and she was really struggling with a particular event that happened with her and her wife before her wife died, and so I was like all right, I want you to paint the event. And she came back with a comic book, you know, which was amazing, really, really amazing. It was like a graphic novel, a mini graphic novel. In like four or five pages sort of went through this, this particular event.

Rachel: 8:55

Um, so it's really kind of finding what works for you and then I give you prompts around your emotions and the events that you are trying to process and trying to untangle. And the untangling is about putting down things that you don't want to take with you into the future and then really holding on to and taking care of the things that you do want to take with you into the future.

Rose: 9:21

So people process grief differently. Some people think they're processing grief, but they're actually they're not, they're almost pushing it away. And then, perhaps later on, cancer. So I saw her slowly demise after like was eight months. So I was more distracted after her death and it was like till six months later when I really started experiencing like anger and like not feeling stable in my environment.

Rose: 10:03

My work was almost it was, my work was good because I focused out. It was a distraction, but everything else started crumbling around me and then I went to see someone, a therapist, who said you know that it typically takes a few months later because when you're grieving at the time of, you know the, the funeral or the wake, you know you're surrounded by community and then after that you're kind of left alone. What are your thoughts around that and do you feel that that is true or do you have any other thoughts around? You know that time period that passes like why it happens or what to do when that happens period that passes, like why it happens or what to do when that happens.

Rachel: 10:49

Yeah, you're absolutely right that everybody grieves in their own way and everybody's grief is unique because everybody's relationship to whatever they've lost is unique.

Rachel: 10:57

Right, there are some universalities because we're humans, right, so we have the same physiological, neurological makeup, basic makeup, and so there are certain things that will be sort of uniform across people's experiences.

Rachel: 11:18

You know, some of it also depends on your culture, right, if you've got a culture that embraces death, you know, like I think of the irish where you like go to a wake and you like have a party around the dead body, you know there's something that's really celebratory about that, but it's also a like they've got an active culture of keening, which is the physical expression of your grief, right, right. Right, we've sort of separated death, made it like a medical event to be avoided at all costs, when actually it's the most predictable thing that we'll ever experience, and I think that there's a lot of bureaucracy around death in particular. So there's a lot of bureaucracy around death in particular. So there's a lot of things to keep you busy and not actively sitting with your grief. Right, you're the estates in escrow. You've got to manage the funeral. You've got to make arrangements for this and for that, and for this, um, so it can sort.

Rachel: 12:25

It can be a distraction, a welcome distraction as well. Giving you a task, right, um, makes me think of that. Uh, colonel Brandon from Sense and Sensibility, give me a task, miss, eleanor, else I go mad. You know, um, and those tasks can be useful because it can feel really overwhelming.

Rachel: 12:49

Grief also manifests itself physically in the body, like depression, yes, the brain fog, the physical fatigue, the sadness, right the lethargy, et cetera, and all of that is trying to deal with this absence, with this loss. I think at some point most people sort of naturally come to the active processing of their grief and if you're lucky, you've got a vibrant community around you that will support you regardless. I know, when my father died, my mother, I mean my mother's community is so beautiful and that community that you know you feel like maybe leaves a couple of weeks after the funeral and everybody kind of gets on with their life. This community was like, no, we're here, year later, we're still here. We're here, you know, like inviting her out, making sure that she was doing things, all of this stuff. We're still here. We're going to talk about Michael, we're going to talk about all of these things.

Rose: 14:01

I think that's important.

Rachel: 14:03

I think it's so important, so's important. I think it's so important, so so important. I heard a beautiful story, too, that I want to share, and then I have one more thing to say about that question Sure, the floor is yours.

Rachel: 14:14

So I heard about this man and I don't know his name. I need to find his name because I want to write to him. He is a funeral celebrant and he typically does funerals for people that he does not know, and one of the things that he says to the entire congregation is, or to whoever's at the funeral he'll say the family doesn't know you're here, right? They are in the middle of this big big thing and they may not remember that you said something to them today. They may not remember that you were, that you showed up, et cetera.

Rachel: 14:56

So, on your way out, I want you to pick up one of those matchboxes that I've made, the matchbox that has the face of the person who's died on it, and I want you to throw it in your junk drawer. And three months from now, four months from now, when you're opening up your junk drawer looking for something or looking for matches, that's when you'll see that and that's when they need you. That's when I want you to reach out to them, and I just think that's so brilliant, it's so brilliant.

Rachel: 15:26

We don't intentionally forget. We just have our own lives that are complicated and nuanced, and our own sufferings, and our own, you know. But what a beautiful little reminder. Yeah, reach out to them, say hello, how are you doing? Can I take you for a coffee or for lunch?

Rose: 15:47

I think I think we forget. I know you want to say one thing, but I think I think we're uncomfortable sometimes as someone who's doesn't know what to say to someone who just lost someone Like you know I've heard you say this before on some other podcasts that you know we or everybody says what can I do? Tell me what I, what, what, what do I need, what I need to do for you, but we don't even know what that is or what to expect if they don't know how to. You know that that, so. So I think that's a beautiful thing and and coming across it three, four months later, when they're really probably grieving a lot or didn't realize they were, and feeling isolated, Like you said.

Rachel: 16:24

You know, I felt busy and it was a distraction, et cetera. And then suddenly, boom, it kind of hit me and you feel lonely for connection, and at that point you're like is it too late to ask people to help me through my grief?

Rose: 16:39

You know, because it's been six months. Right, yeah, Because a lot of times people don't want to reach out and ask other people cause they feel they're a burden or it's it's their cross to bear or not someone else's. But but having a community, I think it's really important. So people out there that are listening, you know, creating a community to help support people who are grieving in any capacity is really super important. Yeah, said you had something else you wanted to share.

Rachel: 17:07

Yeah, I wanted. No. I don't remember what I was going to say. I was going to no, no, it's fine, it'll probably come back to me.

Rachel: 17:17

But the thing that I love about the that what you just said, you know, cause that does actually come up quite a bit the uh feeling worried that they're going to be a burden if they bring up their grief to a friend, et cetera. Um, and so they choose to isolate themselves, they choose not to talk about it, and what I think they don't, most people don't realize, is that people want to be helpful, people want to hear your story, people want to witness. It actually gives the listener a lot too. It's not just the person who's grieving, who's giving their story, the person who's listening and showing up for somebody else. There's a lot of gratitude, a lot of pride, a lot of like beautiful things that we receive when we can do that for someone else too.

Rachel: 18:18

And for those who feel like, well, I don't want to reach out because I don't want to upset them Guess what they're already upset. You reaching out to them and asking them how they're doing will only They'll either say I'm good, thank you for reaching out. I don't really want to open that can of worms. I don't really want to talk about that, but they'll be so grateful that you reached out. Or they'll say yes, please, Can I, can we please chat? Yeah, and you didn't upset them. If they cry, they're upset because of what they've lost or who they've lost, you know.

Rose: 18:54

So yeah, lost, you know. So, yeah, and there's different. You know, sometimes there's a loss of a husband and then there's the wife, and then you have the children, and then the wife is trying to be strong for the children. So that processing that grief in that house is even more, I don't want to say complicated, but there's more layers, right. So you know, I was just thinking about that because I know people who have lost their husbands and their their, their wives are there or even husbands, and they have. You know, they have to process their own grief and then their children and they have to explain to them. And you know, do you ever find that? I don't know if you've worked with children do children process it differently, or is their capacity to process it differently?

Rachel: 19:40

So children and it sort of depends on how old we're talking about, right, very young children are curious, very open. Oh, what's that? I don't know what that is. You know all of the fear around like how our children are going to react. That's on us.

Rose: 20:01

Yeah.

Rachel: 20:01

That's because that's what we fear we are going to do. You know how we are going to react and we're scared that we can't fix it, and the truth is we can't. You know, the only way to the other side is through. When my father died, it was really interesting. I am, my daughter, was three, and we had brought him home to die. He had, he had had a sort of cascading health issues and um failure to thrive and finally, after like three months in rehab, my mom was like he's ready to go, let's bring him home. And he was in our living room for about six days. We cared for his body, we, you know, gave him morphine, we talked around, you know, we all hung out in the living room and talked with him and my daughter would come and, like, play with his hand and, you know, leave, et cetera.

Rachel: 20:59

And he died early one morning, may 4th, and we all were really upset, obviously, and we cracked open a bottle of champagne and started telling stories about him and laughing and crying, and I was so nervous to tell my three-year-old that he was gone and so I postponed it and postponed it and postponed it Like he died at like 7.30 in the morning and then I don't think I told her until about 3 pm and she basically I was like, so you know, greg Red's dead, he's gone. And she's like, oh, you know. And she goes over to the body and she touches his hand and she's like, oh, he's cold. And then she put the blanket over his hand and she wanted to give him a kiss. So I lifted her up and she gave him a kiss and then she was like, okay, went off to play.

Rachel: 21:57

Yeah, later that afternoon, though, at six o'clock, when the funeral home came to pick him up and take him that's when she got upset. She was like, who is this stranger taking him away? And all of us were like, oh, oh, of course, of course, of course that's when she would be upset. Right, you know that children are much more open and if we can, if we can model the fact that we're sad and it's awful and it hurts, but we're going to be okay, that's giving our children so many tools to deal with any kind of heartache, any kind of uncertainty, any kind.

Rose: 22:44

And I know you, you work with people to you know, help them have more compassion towards either people who are grieving or themselves.

Rachel: 23:07

Yeah, yeah. We have a lot of judgment about ourselves and how we feel, yeah, and I try to help them suspend that yeah About anything.

Rose: 23:31

And having feelings about your feelings Very meta, and usually those feelings like guilt and shame. And the reason why is because you know, I know, that your movie talks about connecting with people who have crossed over, while they're crossed over in this life, you know, through signs and synchronicities. So can you talk about your new movie that you're working on?

Rachel: 23:53

Yes, I can Thank you. I actually just had my first planning meeting with my director of photography this morning, so it's very exciting to you know to start to get an idea of how we're going to shoot this film etc. And the title comes from Henry Scott Holland's poem "Death is Nothing at All. I've Only Slipped Away into the Next Room. It's a beautiful poem I actually I will send you a link of me doing the poem.

Rachel: 24:32

Oh beautiful, it's one of my favorite poems and we actually used it for my father's funeral as well, and the gist of the poem is basically I've only slipped away into the next room, I'm around the corner, I'm somewhere very near Right, so I'm going to tell the story of the film Cause.

Rose: 24:50

I love it. I do too, cause you tell me what it's going to be.

Rachel: 24:56

I did tell you yeah, yeah, I love it, I love it. I hope other people will love it as much too. So we're in a cemetery and we are following a very unlikely trio. There's an older woman in her 60s named Jace, who's very calm and serene. We've got a 13-year-old Brian, who's just bebopping around and doing cartwheels, and other 13-year-old Brian who's just bebopping around and doing cartwheels and other 13-year-old boy stuff. And then we've got 16-year-old Lina, who just does not want to be here, and Jason and Brian are trying to get Lena to come out of her shell and enjoy the cemetery, pointing different things out. It's very Neil Gaiman, it's calm and serene and it's beautiful.

Rachel: 25:37

And all of a sudden, Brian's energy completely changes and he goes very, very still, and in the distance we see a woman approach a grave and he watches her really intently, turns back to Lina, winks at her and then goes to join the woman and when he's with her, he blows in her hair and she goes. Oh, Brian, my son, I still miss you so much. At which point Lena goes wait a minute, we can communicate with them. And Jace is like yes, gently, I mean they come here to visit us, but it could be a lot for them. So you have to send them something that they'll recognize as being from you. Like when my sons come to visit, I always send a starling and they know that I'm nearby because it's my favorite bird and Lena's sister, sarah just then arrives to put flowers on Lena's grave and Lena's like what do I do? And Jace is like, well, what will she recognize as being you?

Rachel: 26:37

And Lina takes a couple of leaves and tries to make a heart on her grave Sarah doesn't see. She tries to take some pebbles and put them in the shape of a heart Sarah doesn't see. And finally she takes two white petals off of the bouquet that Sarah has brought and puts them in the shape of a heart on her grave. And Sarah sees them and goes you're here. Oh my God, let me tell you what you, what's going on, oh, it's been so hard since you've been gone. And she just starts pouring her heart out and Lina kind of cracks open and the last shot is us as the audience and the camera sort of pulling out and watching the dead and the living commune together in the cemetery I get.

Rose: 27:16

I just got goosebumps the whole time you're explaining. That is amazing, thank, you so the the side. You can communicate with the other side and they can communicate with you.

Rachel: 27:32

Yeah.

Rose: 27:34

And it could be just conversation.

Rachel: 27:36

Yeah, yeah it's. I talk to my dad all the time. Yeah, I get signs from my nephew. I don't always talk to my nephew. I didn't have. I didn't have a very close relationship with my nephew for a number of reasons, including a very acrimonious divorce. But we call them Ryan the lion and I usually most often find 10 P coins here in London, one that I found. I think it's right here.

Rose: 28:10

Yes, it is so. They're not, they're, they're not common, right, are they common? Oh yeah, 10 pence, I mean since COVID?

Rachel: 28:17

really, really no, because we're becoming a society which there's a whole other. That's a whole other podcast, but this is an older one, from like the night, from the 1990s, and it's got that lion on the back of it. Oh wow, I found this last week and I'm always like, oh, it's lion, it's lion. So, yeah, yeah, and I think, yes, oh, wow, with their dead loved ones, bright, active, evolving, even though that physical being is gone that you know, to remind them that you know they're neurologically part of who you are, but they're ingrained in you, right, they're ingrained in you absolutely Right, absolutely, whether or not they're relatedrained in you, right, they're ingrained in you Absolutely Right, absolutely, whether or not they're related to you or not.

Rose: 29:22

Because I even have my dog, my dog, passed away. Pets are huge, yeah, losing a pet is you know. Family member, family member, and I mean I think I miss, I don't want to say this.

Rose: 29:35

I miss him so much and I talk to him all the time and he shows up like through other pugs in other countries, in like other ways, like I was in London or in England last year and I was at the Greenwich my last day there, walking to the park and like, and I'm walking, I'm, like you know, usually see a pug on my vacations or when I'm away and I haven't seen one. It's really weird. And it's walking through the gate. There's a pug that just walks through the gate and I'm like, oh my goodness, there he is yeah there he is, so anyway.

Rose: 30:15

So, yeah, I, you know people talk about birds being signs, you know the very typical, but they can. Spirit shows up in a lot of ways, I think yeah.

Rachel: 30:24

Yeah, yeah, I think so too, and I think spirit can show up in in wisdom, right? You know, there are times where I think one of the things that I've missed a lot about my dad is being able to talk to him, like when I'm in trouble, because he would be, he was like strong sturdy, and would be like, okay, this is what we're going to do, this is how I'm going to help you, et cetera. Um, and then having that conversation with him just out loud, now, I can usually cling into what would dad do, you know, and I think that that's his spirit, giving me his wisdom for sure.

Rose: 31:10

Yeah, I also feel, and I think it's because I know I had some unresolved I don't want to say issues with my mother. But I was young, I was in my 20's but I still consider myself young because most of my life with her she was ill and she was a very quiet person. But I think, like even now I'm able to resolve some of these issues with her, even though she has passed. I've been able to connect and I'm very intuitive and I've studied mediumship and all that. But but even though it's hard to connect with people who are close to you, I've been able to kind of tune in and and resolve some of those issues that I've had with her. Yeah, spirit, yeah, I think we can do that. I think we can do that too.

Rachel: 32:01

Yeah, give it, give ourselves closure too. Yeah, um, forgiveness is really powerful, and when I I, when I talk about forgiveness and in my work, I really I lean into the dictionary definition of forgiveness, which is to cease to feel resentment. Forgiveness is actually a solitary process. You don't need to talk to anybody to forgive them, you don't need to let them know that you've forgiven them. You know it is. It is something that you choose to do, and I'm not saying it's easy.

Rachel: 32:49

I'm definitely not saying it's easy and it is really worth it, because again very healing, and that's the thing of like what I was saying with the transformation. It's the. We're going to take your suitcase and we're going to open it, we're going to unpack it and then we're going to look at each thing and decide whether or not we're going to put it back in the suitcase or if we're going to leave it here. Thank it, leave it here and then close up the suitcase and keep going. You know, but things can be painful to let go of Sometimes. Our sadness is hard to let go of too, because it makes us feel close to the person who's died. And there again, I think, I think some of it turns into that meta having feelings about our feelings, having feelings about the fact that we're not as sad anymore or we're not feeling it as acutely, um, and that's, that's good. Yeah, it is good, yeah, yeah.

Rose: 33:59

That's good, yeah, cause you know you were saying that grief manifests in physical issues in the body sadness, you know I. I know when my mom passed away, my dad, who was by her side like every day in the hospital he was, really took it really badly and um, eventually he he found someone and remarried, but years later he had a heart attack and I knew right away that was from unprocessed grief. Yeah, you know, he held on to that, and not just the grief of my mom, but also issues he had with his own dad. So it's really important to find a way to to heal and process the grief that you're experiencing.

Rachel: 34:39

Yeah, you know I, yeah, go ahead, sorry just because this came up with my dad, you know, because he had been, he'd been in the hospital for a while. I mean we and like we could see that he was not thriving right, and there's that liminal space of anticipatory grief, a feeling like the physical body is going. But I don't feel like I can start the grieving process until they're actually dead. But the truth is you're actually already processing, you're already starting to grieve, and when they do die, there is, yes, acute sadness and there's relief. There's relief in the certainty, because uncertainty is a very, very difficult place to live in. We as humans, our brain, we don't like uncertainty, we don't like it, and it uses a lot of our emotional, spiritual, physical energy to stay agile in that place, especially where grief is concerned, in that place, especially where grief is concerned. So I'm sure that your dad and you probably had some relief when your mother finally passed, for her own sake and for yours.

Rose: 35:54

Right.

Rachel: 35:54

You know, so yeah.

Rose: 35:58

Yeah, you know I wanted to just talk about briefly. I have a friend who lost her daughter tragically several years ago and you know I can't even imagine losing a child, but she, you know, she's in deep mourning all the time. But one way that she found connection is by learning mediumship. Oh, tell me more with individuals who lost children and they support each other through this mediumship, readings for each other or they support other people who have children who newly crossed over. So this constant learning of being in this community is helping her grieve and continuously grieve. So I just thought that was really powerful and she has now become, she's a medium herself. She doesn't really work, you know, widely with others, it's just in this community but it's really really helped her heal and she realizes that her purpose, part of her purpose in this lifetime, is to do this and that she's also realized the purpose of her child, although difficult to accept her journey, was to be in spirit sooner so that she can help others in spirit.

Rose: 37:32

And yeah, and you know I was doing a reiki session, she's one of my reiki uh students and and I was actually doing a reiki session on her with others, my other students around, and her daughter basically came through my hands and was moving my hands in a certain direction over her heart space and I could feel the presence of her daughter here. While I was doing that, and you know, even and I didn't say anything, while I was doing it, and my friend woke up and she goes. My daughter was here and I said, yeah, she goes. I could see her right over my face. I said that's where my movement was.

Rachel: 38:11

Oh, my God, that's so beautiful, that's so good.

Rose: 38:15

It's nice to know that there's this connection if you're open to receiving it and really you've got to cultivate that relationship with spirit.

Rachel: 38:22

You do.

Rachel: 38:23

You do it and really get to work you got to cultivate that relationship with spirit, you do. You do be afraid of it. Our lives are really noisy so it can be sometimes really, um, easy to dismiss. Yeah, those things you know. So, finding those quiet things and also leaning into your intuition, leaning into it, be a little witchy. Yes, you know it's super powerful. My mom is really witchy. She knows things. She's like something's not right. She'll call me what's going on? And I'm like this just happened 20 minutes ago and she's like, yeah, I felt something, you know, so it's it's just really lean into that. It's part of our. It's part of our experience.

Rachel: 39:09

Yeah, the neuroscience of some of it is also of grief. And that particular connection is actually kind of interesting too, cause we as humans, particularly with our loved ones, we have like a, like a map in our head of where everybody is right, the people that are matter to us. Our brain is holding that and when one of them is gone, we're like don't feel safe, right, um, but we've really, uh, you know, so it's knowing that in our brain we're holding that, those connections. I know where my mom is. My mom knows where I am, something's going on. I'm going to call her, like if you can link to those connections as well out here and they're in spirit.

Rose: 40:00

They show up, whether in your dreams and I'm talking from experience whether through you know signs of some sort that they're here. You know, my son had a car accident a couple of weeks ago and I have known that my family watches over my children and he was okay the car was not, nobody else was hurt. That night I had a dream of my dad and I saw him. He didn't say anything and then also the phone rang and I, in my dream, I picked up the phone and I heard him say hello and he never talks in my dreams and I was like, okay, you know, he's telling me he was here, he was there, he was helping. You know he, it could have been worse, but no, he helped. You know, that's how I interpreted it, yeah, and so, yeah, it was really comforting. And you know I've heard you say before it's like you know when signs show up, you don't look for signs or demand signs or have any expectations, just be aware and open. Right, yeah, because they could show up in any form.

Rachel: 40:57

Yeah, any form. Yeah, yeah, you might be surprised. You might be really surprised. Yeah, that's making me think of a dream that I had many times. I had the same dream several times about after my dad died.

Rachel: 41:13

Um, because I think that, like for me, the big thing that I worried about was that he was ready to go before my mom and we were ready to let him go, you know, and worried that we had tortured him a little bit by trying to get him going through all of this rehab, all of these procedures, etc. And I had this dream where I was like on a caboose of a train that was starting to take off and there was my dad, like in a hospital gown and everything and, and he started running to catch the train and as he ran he started getting healthier and younger and finally was able to jump onto the train and into my arms and then he was himself again as he was before he died. And I took that dream. I had that dream several times, but I took that dream as my dad saying I'm OK, yeah, ok, and it was worth it. It was worth it to try, yeah, I'm.

Rose: 42:10

OK, I love that. I want to share one more dream, because this is I just find that they're powerful that the night my dad passed away, I had a dream that he was in a like a diner booth opposite my children and was talking to them. And then my son the next day, my, my other, my one son they were eight, nine years old when my dad passed, 10 years old. He said, mom, he, I had a dream that you know, no one was in a booth with us and he was talking to us, but he had the same dream.

Rachel: 42:43

I love it. I love it.

Rose: 42:46

I love it. Yeah so, and when my dad and you know my dad passing I grieved, but because I've learned and have learned a lot about grieving, learned about connection with spirit, that my whole process of grieving was so different, I bet I felt like more like I. You know, I know he's here, he's like right here.

Rachel: 43:08

Yeah, you were also really experienced with grief because of everything that had happened with your mom. A lot of people- not just my mom.

Rose: 43:15

You know, and I know that you know when, when somebody close to you dies, you look at life so differently. Yep, you know, I mean, I always said, you know, life's too short. After my mom died because she was only 49. And then I, I, I was she, I was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 49. And I was like, no way, this is going to get me. Yeah, I'm like I got kids to raise. So, you know, I I kind of got off, got through all of that. But finding strength in my experience from my mom passing and not wanting that whole thing to happen to me, I worked through that. So you gain a lot of different I don't know strength, I guess, superpowers we all have superpowers I feel like once you've been through great like a major bereavement, you can't unsee it no right, right.

Rachel: 44:13

So you. It makes you more compassionate towards other people who are grieving, makes you more compassionate towards yourself and, like you said, life short, you reprioritize and you get rid of the stuff that's not serving Absolutely. It's a great opportunity to anyway, you know oh absolutely, you know.

Rose: 44:33

I know that we've talked a lot about grieving from the perspective of people dying in our lives, but there's also other times in our lives or experiences that make us grieve, and you help people with that as well. So, major transitions in life Can you talk about that? Yeah, I think that's really important.

Rachel: 44:53

I think it is too, I actually. So I use the definition of grief that comes from the grief recovery method. Definition of grief that comes from the grief recovery method, which is grief is the set of conflicting emotions that arise from a change in, or end of, a familiar pattern of behavior, which sounds you know, it's a bit of a mouthful, but if you, if you break it down, it's actually really interesting. So it's conflicting emotions, sadness, relief, right, um, but the the end of something, so the end of a familiar pattern of behavior or a change. So, for instance, when I left the States and I moved to London an international move I lost my country, I lost my tribe, I lost my career, I lost my family I mean, they weren't dead, but they were not near me anymore I lost my community, right. There were a lot of things that came to an abrupt end when I made that huge international move and I grieved it.

Rachel: 46:08

You know what I think? That I was grieving up until about two years ago, where I really was fighting. Being here was very unhappy, being here for a number of reasons. Happy being here for a number of reasons. And then I finally was like well, I need to accept that I'm here, number one I need to say it's okay that I feel this way, and then I need to start finding ways to change how I feel about this place, and I've done that by working really hard on forging new relationships with people. But yeah, so grief comes when things come to an end.

Rachel: 46:49

If you get divorced, there's going to be grief there. If you lose your job or you get fired or you retire, you know our work tends to be a major part of our identity and when that stops then there's this vacuum where that was. So how do you navigate leaning into the next chapter and what do you want it to look like, et cetera. So I've helped people through divorce. I've helped people through job redundancies, empty nesting. I haven't helped anybody through empty nesting yet, but I'm sure my sister is about to go through it, so her son goes to Uni and it's the last one, so she's sort of I could see her kind of going I don't know what I'm going to do.

Rachel: 47:49

I don't know what I'm going to do. You know, like I like my life the way it is, but you know, should I, should I hate that word Should I be doing something different, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Rose: 47:56

Yeah, empty nesting. You know, people, women, women, I'm going to say women we pour our heart and soul into raising our children and then you know they're not around. So we need to find a new purpose, a new hobby, something, yeah, where we're feeling useful, yet also enjoy the life that you know. We did what we needed to do and now we have this time. Yeah, we can do anything we want.

Rachel: 48:28

You can do anything we want. Yeah, I think you're right, though I think like, when I think about, philosophically right, what the meaning of life is Big, big, big, esoteric question. I think it's purpose, yeah, you know, and it's purpose and relationships, and those are the things that make us happy or unhappy. Money's a necessity just because of the structure that we live in. But I know people who have an exorbitant amount of money, who are some of the loneliest people you will ever meet and they're deeply unhappy and the money doesn't change that. You know. If anything, it makes them suspicious of other people. Why are you around me? What do you want? Right, you know, but I love that you said purpose, like, what's your purpose? Yeah, that's where we find meaning and that's where we find healing, solace, connection.

Rose: 49:31

Yeah, and some of us are here to help others like yourself.

Rachel: 49:35

Like you're here to help others through grief and change transformation on different levels, and you know that is your purpose yeah I, I actually it's interesting because I've started doing some energy work with a wonderful woman named deb driscoll big life, magic, um and in our first conversation, when we were sort of talking about trying to synergize energy, she's like you know, we've got our physical energy, our spiritual energy, our mental energy and our hearts energy and we want to make them sort of like sing in harmony, sing and in harmony. Um, and one of the words that I have been avoiding, that I'm really trying to embrace now, is that I'm a healer. Why are you?

Rose: 50:37

trying to. Why are you trying to avoid?

Rachel: 50:39

I don't know, I don't, I honestly don't know. It's making me a little emotional, is it?

Rose: 50:45

because is it? Do you feel it's a big responsibility to be labeled as a healer, because you know?

Rachel: 50:51

I mean, maybe, maybe it's um, yeah, I honestly, I mean it's interesting because I've been journaling about it. I'm like what? I'm not sure why I've been reluctant to own that word. You know, part of it, I think, is responsibility, but yeah, I don't know, it feels like a big word.

Rose: 51:19

Well, because I've had, I've had, I've also struggled with that Because heal it. You know, I practice Reiki, I'm a yoga teacher, I'm a Qigong teacher and then I realized like maybe I'm not really the healer. I'm not really a healer Because I also study shamanism and the perspective of shamanism is that we can heal ourselves. We are the healers of ourselves. Okay, so you're guiding other people to help heal themselves? Yeah, so if healing the word healer is not a word that resonates with you and that you're uncomfortable with that, find another word that that you're more comfortable with, and maybe healing is just something like a tool that you can help other people with, if that's yeah, it's just.

Rachel: 52:11

Yeah, I don't know. I like the word healer, I do, I do, I do like the word healer. It is just so interesting, like I I mean, years of therapy helped me with this, but I struggled with the word pride. Being proud, you know, and I use that word a lot. Now I tell people how proud I am of them, cause I think it's really important. Yes, I think that that is a word that is just that a is super healing, yes, super healing. To know, to be proud of yourself, um, and to tell other people that you're proud of them.

Rose: 52:54

Yeah, I think, I think I think one of the things I I never got from my mom is those words, and I know it's because she never got it from her parents she came from. You know, she's immigrated here from Italy and her parents, you know. It was just. It wasn't that way back then and I never heard that, although that's what has made me become an overachiever and wanting some validation from other people sometimes. But now I'm like no, no, I know I don't need that, I know I'm. I'm like no, no, I know I don't need that. I know I'm, I'm okay, I'm proud of myself, so but yes, yes, very easy for you to pass along that same to my kids cycle of you know through your mothering.

Rose: 53:36

Yes, right. Well, that's one thing I have to say that. Well, that's one thing I have to say. That's that that takes awareness and that takes wanting to open up those wounds and put a little salt on them and see what kind of burns the most, and and work from there. You know, that's where like being your own guide, but I've done a lot of the work, so you know, I know a lot of the. But, yes, I love that you're a healer and you're helping other people heal and that's so important because life is too short.

Rose: 54:27

We we want to move out of the grief. We want to be able to embrace transitions and changes. Divorce or Empty Nesting or , or anything, yeah, midlife crisis yeah, whatever, whatever it is, change is great. Crisis, yeah, whatever, whatever it is, change is great. But, yeah, we need to know how to how to embrace that change and feel good and comfortable with that. Yeah, yeah, um, I I want to go back to your movie, your new movie, somewhere very near, and I know that you're also working with someone in in um in england, john adams, who is trying to make. Yeah, can you talk about that? I'd rather you say it.

Rachel: 55:07

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So John Adams is I mean, he shies away from the word activist, but he is an activist. He has a podcast called A Changing Industry, he's a funeral director and he recently petitioned parliament to include bereavement in the national curriculum. And I partnered with him, because what I want to do with Somewhere Very Near is to take it into schools and then lead a workshop with young people age appropriate, depending on the grade, et cetera to have them watch the movie, and then we'll do a creative exercise introducing these ideas of death, of bereavement, of grief, et cetera, because I feel like that's part of it.

Rachel: 55:59

Right Is, like you were saying, how is it different with children? They're open, they're curious, they don't know. But if we model to them that death is something to be avoided, that death is something to be feared, that you don't want to talk about it, et cetera, that's what they will take into adulthood and that's the coping strategy that they will then have to unlearn the first time they experience an ending of some sort. So if we can make it less scary, I guess it's that Buddhist thing too of like turn towards suffering, turn towards it, make it your friend, you know, because it's inevitable, like your friend, you know, because it's inevitable.

Rachel: 56:43

It's inevitable and, like your friend who now is supporting other people who have lost children through her mediumship, there are gifts for us. If we will turn towards other people's suffering right, they're not going to infect us with their suffering I mean, suffering is part of the human condition but if we can hold space for them, then we can have pride in ourselves, we can have compassion for ourselves, like it just, it just blossoms into all of these beautiful things, huge ripple effects that it can have not just on you but on your community. And yeah, so, yeah, yeah. So I'm very excited about that partnership with john and um. I've already got one school lined up, uh, who are basically I was like, well, I'll do, I'll come in and do it for free. If I could be your, you'll be my beta and I'm excited.

Rose: 57:44

Yeah, I love that. It's brilliant and I hope you can bring it here to the States because you know, I know my kids have been. You know my kids going through here and my cousins lost her husband or daughter, young teenager. You know the schools aren't really doing, they're not doing anything. You know they're saying, okay, take a day off and come back to school, and there's no nothing in place to help support these kids and it's really sad. And even the kids, like kids that have lost friends in school, that have died for whatever reason, you know there needs to be support because it's like you know, somebody is there one day and they're not there anymore, you know. So it needs to happen here in the schools.

Rachel: 58:28

I always say things need to start young, yeah, yeah, because then you're giving them, you're giving them resources that they can lean on. So it doesn't feel like a shock, right, it's not like oh my God, like I had no idea this could happen and you know. Instead it's like, oh yeah, ok, so at some point I'm going to deal with this and maybe it doesn't feel so scary.

Rose: 58:56

It feel really scary help you with trying to bring it here, at least in my little small town. Yeah, I will definitely definitely help you with that, because we need to get this out to help the kids to help anyone yeah, that would be amazing.

Rachel: 59:13

I would love that.

Rose: 59:13

I would love, love, love, love that maybe that's our connection, because I was, I felt this the moment I met you and there was like these weird synchro, not weird, I don'tities, yes, serendipities, and you know and I was like, okay, just thought about we can work together. I was like, love collaborating with people. Is there anything else you'd like to share or add or talk about before we wrap this up?

Rachel: 59:36

no, just thank you so much for sharing as much of your story in this as well, and yeah, yeah, I'm so glad we're connected and I really enjoyed this chat, me too.

Rose: 59:53

I wish you success with your new film and your journey as a healer. Thank you, and this is only the beginning, because you are just a beautiful shining light with beautiful energy and you're doing amazing things. So thank you for being here.

Rachel: 1:00:09

Thank you so much. Thank you for giving me the opportunity.

Rose: 1:00:19

Thank you for joining me here on Chat Off The Mat. I hope these stories have inspired you. If you've enjoyed this episode, please share it with those who might benefit. Your support helps me spread awareness about the power of transformative healing. Stay connected with me on social media. Reach out with your own healing stories or topics you'd like me to explore in future episodes. Your voice is an essential part of this community. I hope that your healing journey is filled with self-discovery, curiosity, resilience and the unwavering belief in the power that resides within you. Until next time, I'm Rose Wippich, wishing you a journey filled with love, laughter and endless possibilities.